Masculinity and ‘The Man’

“I got gas in the tank / I got money in the bank / I got news for you baby, you’re looking at the man.

I got skin in the game / I don’t feel no pain / I got news for you baby, you’re looking at the man.”

—The Killers, “The Man.”

Catchy single. While there is a sense of poking fun at defining masculinity in terms of strength, power, fame, money, or even a slight association of divinity, i.e, “[r]ight hand to God”, these ideas are often central to “male culture” in the United States (and elsewhere). Feminism, despite its many faults, does offer men the possibility of transcending the limitations imposed by popular notions of masculinity, which is no small thing.